


Re-Animator: Reconciled

by The0verboss



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dan explain yourself, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Mad Science, Post-Movie: Beyond Re-Animator (2003), To the Max, chapter 2 gets a little hot and heavy, the ghost of Howard Phillips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The0verboss/pseuds/The0verboss
Summary: Post Beyond Re-Animator, Daniel Cain is back and ready to work. He's even brought a little peace offering for a newly escaped Herbert West.Now if only he could get over Howard Fucking Phillips, taking what has always been his place.Watch it Dan your jealousy is showing.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fic in this fandom, but i didnt get so much bit by a plot bunny as run over by a mac truck. I wanted to turn the idea of Dan falling apart after Herbert on its head, and let him be the mad scientist he always coulda been. but also, i wanted to see him as the jealous one this time, instead of Herbert. Thus we got this baby, which thinks its way cleverer than it is.

In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. A simple definition, one taught to school children in their infancy. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal. Equal. The same. A rectangle with four sides of equal length is a square. All squares are rectangles, not all rectangles are squares.

the shiny plastic rectangle sitting in Dan Cain's palm, the one with a picture of a young blonde man, the name at the top reading Dr. Howard Phillips, has him ruminating on equality. On sameness. Howard Phillips has honest eyes, and an eager half smile, a sort of earnest innocence pervading the photograph. The picture has Dan Cain thinking about squares. 

Herbert is in the shower. They’re an hour or so outside of Arkham, stopped off in Amesbury at a dingy little motel that took cash and didn’t ask for identification. When Dan had checked them in they’d also pointedly not looked at the blood stains on his companion. Herbert had barely said three words since Dan had picked him up just down the block from the prison, strolling casual as could be. He puts it down to shock, if their roles had been reversed Dan knows he wouldn’t have been expecting a lift. Not after thirteen years of silence, of distance. And certainly not after the thorough screwing Dan had given Herbert in the courtroom.

The water shuts off and in a moment a towel clad Dr. West is shuffling out of the bathroom, glasses a bit foggy. His mouth is twisted in an annoyed huff and his hands cling to the towel at his waist. 

“You took my clothes.”

“They were covered in blood, Herbert.”

“I don’t have any others.”

Dan nods at a stack of folded clothes on the foot of the bed closest to Herbert. Blue shirt, black pants, black skinny tie. He expects the shirt will be too large, the pants too long, but at least they’ll be clean. And the tie is the correct style, not like the thick black silk Herbert had had on. No no, that monstrosity is in the dumpster where it belongs.

Herbert purses his lips, eyes squinting through thick lenses, vivisecting as they look through him, and Dan can’t hold eye contact. 

“How did you know to come get me?” He asks, and it’s as much a _why_ as a man so disassociated from sentiment might manage to get. 

“Police scanner.” Dan says, eyes drifting back to the ID card in his hand. “When the call came in it mentioned the bodies and I just knew.”

“A police scanner.” West asks, incredulous.

“Yea I leave it on in the-“ he practically chokes on his tongue. 

In the basement. He leaves the police scanner on, in the basement. He listens to it while he _Works_. He can’t possibly tell Herbert that, not yet. Not when _Dr. Howard Phillips, M.D._ is looking at him. 

But Herbert has sensed a secret, and he cocks his head. He used to look at severed body parts like that. A manic combination of cool, detached scientific curiosity and ravenous hunger; a need to bend and break and own. Dan has often wondered if there is any difference, in Herbert's mind, but between him and Herbert's own arm. Did the last thirteen years feel like an amputation? Will Herbert sew him back on, now? Or will he simply dissect him and leave him on a slab. 

“Leave it on? Dan?” Herbert asks, and Dan swallows against what is sure to become a night of deep cuts into his intentions. When Dan opens his mouth to answer, his friend drops the towel he’s been holding and starts to dress. He shuts his eyes, against the impulse to stare at Herbert, at the body he remembers intimately. Now isn’t the time to try and see all the ways Herbert has changed without him. He knows the man is trying to throw him off balance. It’s working but there’s no choice but forward. 

“I leave it on in the basement.”

If Herbert's nakedness threw Dan off his game, the mention of _the basement_ seems to do the same for Herbert. He fumbles a button and scoffs a laugh before looking back at his friend.

“The basement. Let me guess. There’s a bar and a Tv. A place you can go to escape your wife. A man's little sanctuary.” Herbert’s disdain for his crafted fantasy is clear. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into what Dan’s life must look like post acquittal. Dan smiles. Oh, if he only knew how wrong he was.

“Sure. Why not.” He says. He’s far more comfortable letting Herbert believe that he’s settled into normalcy. He can’t stand the idea of the man finding out about his empty house, and the basement laboratory, not yet. A laboratory he’s sure the police will find the second they realize Herbert West isn’t amongst the dead or recaptured at the prison. A basement laboratory full to the brim with the neighborhood's stray cats, and slow raccoons.

He had tried, after the trial, to settle into something good and normal. To let go. But _The Work_ , it was like a virus. By the time Francesca had left, there was already new chemical equipment set up, and no one to stop him from returning. The police scanner had gone in first as a paranoid precaution. Surely the world would sense him slipping. Now he knows he’d simply been waiting for exactly the news he'd picked up. He’d been waiting to hear from Herbert. 

Which feels desperately pathetic with _Dr. Howard Phillip’s_ ID in his hand. His young eyes and pointed nose. Dan wonders if he’s tall.

“Who’s Howard Phillips?” He asks and it feels like eating sand. Herbert perks up and glances towards him and Dan flashes the ID for context.

“Ah.” Herbert sighs before a resigned look comes upon his face. He's slipped back into his prison issue boxers and is through one sock and onto another before the answer coalesces. “Another disappointment.”

“Your new assistant.” _You replaced me_ goes unsaid, but Dan feels his lip curl. Herbert laughs and rubs his hands against his thighs before shrugging.

“He was more like you than I realized.”

It’s Dan’s turn to scoff. “Devilishly handsome, and easily manipulated?” He sneers.

Again Herbert cocks his head but this time he smiles, as though Dan has done something unexpected. It takes a moment for Dan to realize it’s the opposite, and that he’s shown his hand too soon. 

“He let a woman distract him. A shame really, I had high expectations for this one.”

_This_ one. Not _him_ , not _my friend or colleague_. Howard Phillips, just another specimen, but still belonging to Herbert West. And yet he had had high expectations for this one. 

“Why?”

“He sought me out. Came to me. Professed a desire to work together.” Herbert practically preens, and it makes Dan want to punch him in the mouth. His arrogance and narcissism are ever obvious. But worse than that is how he makes it sound like Howard Phillips is special, a man able to discern Herbert's genius where others fail. Where Dan failed. “I foolishly hoped that meant he’d be able to commit. A miscalculation. Not my first or only.” 

It isn’t lost on Dan how his friend, and yes this is his friend, _say it, own it_ , speaks in the language of coupling. How Herbert dresses up his partnerships like they’re relationships. It had annoyed him, the subtle flirting, an undesired affection, in their early days. Especially post Meg. Even after their relationship had advanced to include intercourse, Dan hadn’t enjoyed how Herbert talked about them. Like they were soulmates. But now it’s Howard Fucking Phillips he’s talking about. Howard Fucking Phillips.

“He suck your dick too?” Dan bites and feels everything he thinks he’s hiding spill over onto the floor between them. Herbert wrinkles his nose at him. 

“Don’t be crude Daniel.” Herbert chastises him with a shake of his head. “He and I, we did accomplish some-“

He can’t take it. Not another second of listening to Herbert talk about his replacement. Dan flings the ID at his seated friend before standing and walking out of the door. He needs some air, that’s all, and if Herbert’s fish out of water expression soothes him, well it’s deserved. 

He can hear Herbert call after him, but he’s already down the sidewalk and at the car. He pops the trunk and glares at the contents.

He’ll show him. Oh yes. **Fuck Howard Phillips.**

When he returns to their room, Herbert is scribbling hastily in a notebook pulled from the black bag he’d had with him. The ID card sits on the floor where it must have fallen and Dan finds his mood cooling. He hefts the suitcase in his hand and sets it on the end of the second double bed in the room. 

“I’m not like him and He’s nothing like me.” Dan says, and when Herbert deigns to look at him he flips the clasps on the suitcase and pops it open. Glowing turquoise light, more luminous than the motel’s lamps, plumes out and soaks into the whites of Dan’s eyes and along the side of his body. He feels half crazed, and Herbert's tiny gasp has him hooked and released at the same time. Pulled apart, autopsied at the moment of resuscitation. There’s nothing and no reason to hide. 

Herbert is across the room in moments and looking inside the suitcase where sickly green and a new cool blue fluid gleam like binary stars in their plastic containers. 

“Oh.” Herbert sighs, one hand tracing the outer edge of the containers in the suitcases before moving on to thumb through a well loved notebook. There are three stacks of moleskine journals, and Herbert's eyes catalogue them in eras. Old, familiar tablets he’d had with Dr. Gruber, the battered remains of his Peruvian war diaries. Time alone and Time with Dan. But the third stack gives him pause. He doesn’t recognize them at all. The obvious answer is too brittle of a hope, but when he looks again the handwriting is unmistakable. “Oh, Daniel. You’ve been working.” 

“I couldn’t stop. Not forever, not after we got so close.” Dan whispers. They’re standing near enough that Dan can smell the cheap hotel soap Herbert used, and in the haunting light of twin reagents, the years seem to have melted away. The contrast is so bright, Dan can’t make out the new lines on his friends face, and it feels like they never left their lab. If he looks at the bed again it might be a slab, and on it their bride.

“What does it do?”

“Compliments yours.” Dan answers, his hand reaching down to tap the plastic container of the blue serum. His fingers catch Herberts for a moment before letting go. He chooses to ignore how the man next to him goes still at the contact. “The first year, it was all the same. Failure after failure. None of my specimens were fresh enough.”

“One of our greatest hurdles.”

“Yes, but it gave me an idea for how to tweak your reagent. This one isn’t a reanimating agent.”

“Dan, if you keep me in suspense much longer-“

“It’s a regenerating agent. It works on dead tissue. it fixes the effects, any effects, of decay post mortem. Heals them.”

Herbert goes utterly silent, and his mouth pulls down, his enraptured moue turning to a full blown pout. He looks...so very sad. Dan had forgotten how full his eyes could be and, God, the urge to wrap him in his arms is unbearable. Narrow shoulders slump as a proud spine curves inward, a picture of self defense. 

“Herbert.”

“You betrayed me.” He says and his lip trembles and whether it’s rage or sadness Dan can’t tell. “We...we could have done this together, I hadn’t thought-“

“I know. I know and I’m sorry.”

Herbert shuts his eyes, and Dan can see the anger on his friend's face clearly.“I told myself I wouldn't ask you. That it was irrelevant, the effect was what mattered.” He takes a deep breath, and when he opens his eyes again they drive through Dan like a needle through a bug. “Why, Daniel?”

Dan shuts the suitcase, careful not to close it on Herbert’s hand before turning to sit. He’s rehearsed this part in the mirror for years. Because Herbert might ask and in the off chance he did Dan wanted to be able to answer him. 

“Fear, mostly. Anger.” He says, and Herbert straightens his back and sneers. He puffs up like a venomous cobra and Dan has to squash the urge to rise and meet him. He can’t control Herbert’s arrogance, his indignance, only how he responds to it.

“You could have just walked away but you didn’t, you-”

“I think it’s pretty obvious I couldn’t walk away.” Herbert doesn’t deflate, not really but Dan can see the change in his posture, prepared to hear Dan out. He folds his arms across his chest and nods. “That night. We succeeded. Meg’s heart, Gloria’s head- she was alive. And then. It all fell apart. And Herbert, I saw the crypt. I saw your experiments and they scared the shit out of me.”

Herbert has the good grace to look embarrassed at Dan’s casual mention of his creations. He looks away, lips pursed again while he chews on his cheek, and moves to take a seat on the other bed, across from Dan. He takes his notebook in hand again, but it’s mostly just an excuse to grab his pen and click it. Several times. 

“And Francesca had nothing to do with it?” He asks, and Dan breathes a bit easier. Herbert’s jealousy is familiar and he’s glad not to be the only one of them afflicted. 

“Of course she did, she almost died because of us. But, Herbert I wasn’t just afraid for me or for her. You needed help.” Dan has a placating hand up before his friend can come across the room at him. Any implication of instability had always rankled Herbert, years of being written off as crazy for science he knew was sound would do that to a man. For all that Dan knew that Herbert had been near to unraveling as they built the bride, saying it was probably ill advised. “Or I don’t know, maybe I needed time to sort myself out. I don’t know.”

“So I go to prison so you can-”

“I didn’t hold up my end of our partnership. But that was true even before you were arrested. I should have been there with you, you shouldn’t have had to lie about the things in the crypt.” And here is where he’ll have to set every card on the table. This is the part of their relationship Dan had never been prepared for. “And I should have been able to ask you to slow down. But if I did, If I’d asked, then I was a real partner. I wasn’t ready to think of myself like that. Hell, could you have slowed down? If I had asked you to?”

Herbert’s silence is deafening, his face still full of a haughty superiority that Dan has always hated. No matter how ready he is to return to their partnership, and he is, _god_ he is, he suspects this will always be his least favorite part of Herbert. 

“I don’t know. Why should I have? We were making progress. We were so close!”

“But not close enough!” Dan shouts. He runs a hand through his hair, gripping it tightly before continuing. “I failed you, but I’m here now, The Work is here now and I won’t fail again. Not if you can promise to listen once in a while.”

Herbert doesn’t answer, but his face has relaxed and maybe that’s the best Dan can hope for for now. It is a lot to lay on someone, especially as emotionally inept as Herbert is. 

“Look, I’m going to go get a pizza. We have to eat. You just. Just don’t leave, ok. We can talk more when I get back.” Dan says, picking up his coat and keys. Herbert regards him carefully before nodding moving to put his back against the headboard of the double bed. 

“Ok.”

“Herbert-”

“I said ok, Dan.” Herbert repeats, cracking his notebook open. He doesn’t look up as he begins writing again. “Pizza sounds...more than acceptable.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which, Dan is still jealous, Herbert tries to sneak work in, the boys eat pizza, get a little naked, and deal with some insecurities. (also they kiss)

Pizza is easy enough to find, even late. Cheese and mushroom, and Dan wonders how Herbert will take the news of his vegetarianism, better or worse than his confession. Once the work had begun again, once he’d really started putting his plans in motion, Dan found he wasn't able to look at meat the same way. Even mushrooms are a stretch these days, knowing what he does about them. And that's a current line of study he can’t wait to share.

It hits him then, standing next to his car in the cool night air, greasy box in hand. He’ll be able to share, he’ll no longer be spending days alone in a cold basement, surrounded by corpses. There will be someone with him. And not just any someone, the right someone. If Dan feels more than a little giddy at the prospect, well he doesn’t think anyone could blame him 

Back at the motel, Dan finds Herbert has rearranged. The far bed is now home to his suitcase, it’s contents pulled out and arranged toward the head of the bed and at its foot a number of wired components he doesn’t recognize. Herbert's black bag lays forgotten on the floor with Howard Phillips' ID card. 

The good doctor is standing at the foot of the bed, fully dressed, shirt tucked in, the tie on, one hand at his chin and the other on his elbow. He’s the picture of the man Dan remembers. Well, almost. Herbert’s hair is starting to thin, and there are new lines around his mouth. But this is how Dan’s brain had enshrined him. Dr. West at work.

He glances at Dan when he enters and gestures to the bed.

“I thought I’d share what I’ve been working on.” He says without looking away from the bed.

“I don’t like the new glasses.” Dan says and Herbert blinks at him, confused.The pizza box gets set on the other bed, far away from the reanimating chemicals. “They’re too small. They don’t suit your face.”

“Well, they don’t have a lot of options in prison, Danny.”

“Suppose not. Let’s eat.” 

“Aren’t you-“ Herbert's stomach growls loudly and Dan fails to suppress a giggle. 

“You can show me after pizza. Sit down.” 

Herbert acquiesces but Dan can see his annoyance. He snatches a slice up by its crust and promptly stuffs it in his mouth. 

Dan can recall many meals with Dr. West. As students they’d eaten cheaply, sandwiches, pasta, and traded on grocery duty. In Peru, there had been women with the rebels, warriors, wives and mothers and they’d cooked traditional meals on the quiet nights. He remembers how Herbert had complained about the food then, never a big fan of eating for more than sustenance, and had chosen to stick to rations. He’d always eaten precisely, and likely never enough to be really full. 

This time is worlds different. Herbert's eyes flutter shut and he chews slowly, savors his mouthful. 

“Better than prison food eh?” Dan asks, smiling, and steals another slice for himself.

“I’ve never really understood the preoccupation with eating. But when it’s dictated to you…” Herbert answers around a second bite. “When I was in solitary it was easy to forgo eating. But if you went too long they’d make you.”

“How long were you in solitary?”

“Three years.”

“That’s barbaric.”

Herbert shakes his head, “I preferred it. The politics of a prison yard are...pedestrian. Distracting. I did some of my best work in solitary.”

Dan looks toward the bed again. He grabs a third slice of pizza before leaving one bed and approaching the other. He looks over the new components, Herbert’s new work. It's more mechanical in nature than he might have expected. Herbert had been a virtuoso with a chemistry set, but this suggests a command of engineering Dan had been only vaguely aware of. 

There’s a small bulb, snapped into a cartridge with a copper coil stuck to it. It doesn’t look unlike an automotive light bulb and for a moment Dan wonders if that’s exactly what it is, repurposed, given new life in Herbert’s process. Thin, clear wires flow from one end and terminate in a set of delicate prongs. On the other end a switch box. Dan looks at the silver prongs, strangely a little bit beautiful in their construction. These too must have been repurposed from things in Herbert’s cell and he marvels for a moment at his friend’s resourcefulness.

How hard it must have been, to accomplish anything under such strict observation. Especially alone. _But he wasn’t alone, was he. No, he had Howard._ Dan’s jealousy whispers. He finishes his slice of pizza, wipes the remnants off on his sweater, before picking up the cartridge and examining the cords in greater detail. 

The cords aren’t empty, filaments run from the prongs and are wound into the cartridge.

“What does it do?” He asks, a reflection of his friend’s question from earlier. Herbert joins him, sits on the bed, legs crossed, one on top of the other. There’s a light behind Herbert’s eyes when he looks up at Dan, the thrill of demonstrating his genius, his cleverness. A hint of mesmerism, Dan thinks, as he feels himself drawn in. 

“It collects NPE.” 

“You worked on this with him?”

“A bit.” Hebert admits, blushes and glances away. If it were anything but an awkward tic Dan would almost call it demure. He looks back to Dan through dark eyelashes and over the top of his glasses. “We ran the first tests on human subjects.”

Well that decides it.

“I hate it.” Dan huffs, feeling the spell of the moment fizzle. He lets the wired contraption hang limp from his fist.

Herbert can’t help the laugh that whispers out of him, a thin reedy thing. Dan’s only ever heard him so honestly amused a handful of times, the last being in their lab. He’d been such a shit about the new life Herbert had created, four fingers and an eyeball. In his defense, Herbert’s dark sense of humor had seemed morbidly inappropriate back then, a clear indicator of his apathy toward their subjects. Here and now Dan can’t help how it warms him to hear his friend laugh. 

Dr. West reaches to take the contraption from his hand, still smiling, mouth twisting to one side as he tries to get it under control.

“No no, darling, you’re going to love it. This, NPE, this is exactly what you're missing. What we've been missing.” He explains, opening his notebook to point to several diagrams. A shame, really, since Dan’s attention has wandered away from the detailed explanation being given.

“Say that again.”

Herbert rolls his eyes. “The NPE, that’s nano plasmic-“

“No.” Dan interrupts, one hand reaching to cup a lightly stubbled jaw. His thumb brushes against one of the new lines on Herbet’s face, records it. “the other part.”

Glassy eyes behind oval lenses look up and make contact with Dan’s and the feeling of drowning returns. Dr. Hill had been obsessed with the location of will in the brain, and Dan isn’t entirely convinced that that knowledge hadn’t contributed to his ability to control their reanimated specimens. A hand reaches up and wraps possessively around a wrist, a thumb pressed against his pulse point. Staring at Herbert now, mature, tempered in a crucible of Dan’s making, he knows Hill never truly stood a chance. And Neither did he. 

“...darling?”

He’s kissing Herbert before he knows it, one hand clawed into the back of his neck and it feels more like coming home than anything ever has. Dan expects Herbert to freeze, to shut him out. Instead his friend’s mouth parts eagerly, and soon they’re closer to devouring each other than kissing. Dan’s hands are fast untucking Herbert’s shirt and fumbling with buttons. He needs to feel him, his skin, his body.

“I just got dressed.” Herbert murmurs against his mouth. Dan takes the opportunity to kiss a path up his neck, what he can reach of it above the starched collar. He suckles gently at a thrumming vein while Herbert shivers and runs his hands up Dan’s arms. 

“I can fix that.” Dan speaks directly into an ear before sucking a lobe between his teeth.

“We should move to the other bed first. My equipment here is...delicate” 

“Anything you want.”

Herberts fists are in his shirt then, stronger than Dan remembers, pulling him up before pushing him back down against the other bed. His sweater comes off quick, then his undershirt and Herbert is in his lap fast as lightning. There’s teeth in his neck for a second before a wet mouth soothes the bite and fuck if he doesn’t get Herbert out of his shirt-

“Roll over.” Dan gasps and soon Herbert is the one on his back, his hands reaching for Dan’s face and guiding their mouths back together. The skinny tie is the next article of clothing to be discarded and now Dan can finally get rid of the crisp blue button down. 

Herbert's body had always been compact, not an ounce of him frivolous or showy. His muscles had been functional, and developed to suit exactly what he needed. Wrestling corpses, digging graves, swinging in and out of holes in the wall. It’s no different now and Dan finds his sweet spots in all the places he remembers. His mouth travels down a straining neck, sucking and kissing, down a lightly furred chest before latching onto a pink peaked nipple. His hands hook into the V of Herberts hips, so much softer than it had been when they were both still young men.

“Danny!” Herbert moans and quakes under him, legs spreading to pull Dan between them. 

“I missed you.” Dan speaks, another confession, directly into the skin above Herbert’s rapidly beating heart. His hands are making fast work of his friend’s, no, his partner’s belt. 

“You have only yourself to blame.” Herbert whispers, blunt fingernails scraping against Dan’s shoulders like a warning against arguing with him. Dan feels his back bow automatically, and god, if it isn't wonderful to know Herbert remembers him too. 

“Let me make it up to you.” Surgeon’s hands leave their home at narrow hips and dance, feather-light up a curving spine. 

Herbert's pants and boxers come off all at once and Dan tosses them to the floor. The red flushed cock that springs up is so hard it’s weeping. Dan’s mouth waters, a Pavlovian response, and his eyes cut quick to the bedside table between the two beds. He contemplates the likelihood that a place this cheap might provide condoms, but as he does so his eyes skirt the ugly carpeted floor. A small white rectangle gleams up at him, a smiling picture, judgmental. A little plastic mind trap.

It’s like being dunked in ice water. All the heat that had been throbbing in his veins goes cold.

He must take too long staring down at the near forgotten ID, vision tunneling in his anxiety, because Herbert squirms and reaches for his face. “Daniel, what’s wrong?”

What’s wrong. What. Is. Wrong.

Dan takes a shuddering breath. He’s being an idiot, but he can’t help it. He’s going soft just sitting there and that's even more embarrassing than what he’s about to do. “You know you never did answer my first question.”

“Which was?”

“Were you...did you and him...”

He stutters. There’s no anger this time to strengthen his tongue, only a lonely fear, collecting every soft look Herbert has had on his face this evening. It’s for _The Work_ , he knows it’s for _The Work_ ; Herbert's first and only true love. It’s ridiculous to be jealous of anyone or anything else. But he can’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe he’s too late. Maybe he’s old news. Maybe there is no forgiving, no matter what he’s done to try and earn it.

He hasn’t even told Herbert the half of it, but still it feels paltry next to his sins, and isn’t that a hilarious way to feel with Herbert West in his bed. The man wears the very notion of sin like a Nobel Prize. 

But none of that matters if he deserves to be replaced. 

“Were you and Howard-“

Herbert’s brow furrows almost instantly and his lip curls into a sneer of indignation. 

“Oh i can’t believe you.” He says, acidic, sitting up to poke Dan in his chest. “You, YOU are asking me this?”

Dan groans, because he knows Herbert’s right to be angry. He has the only right and it isn’t any of Dan’s business what he did _in prison._ In prison, where Daniel’s own betrayal put him. He grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees spots and sits back on his feet. “Herbert, just answer the question. Please.”

Herbert scoffs at him again before flopping gracelessly back against the bed. When Dan looks at him next he’s glaring at the ceiling, minutes ticking by, mouth stiffly set.

“No Daniel,” Herbert finally says, speaking directly to the ceiling. “it was a solely scientific partnership. Purely a meeting of the minds.”

A meeting of the minds, coalescing, melding. Howard Phillips knowing Herbert West’s most well kept secrets, working and advancing Herbert’s private war against death. Dan can practically see them side by side, Howard anticipating Herbert’s needs in the lab before he voices them. A dedicated soldier, a new and eager student. A young and handsome partner. Oh, and how Herbert would reward him, with his regard. With his respect. 

“Fuck, thats almost worse.” Dan says as he leans his forehead down to rest on Herbert’s narrow chest. 

“Danny.” Herbert groans, and his exasperation is clear. A hand winds its way into Dan’s hair, a tight grip forcing his head up, forcing him to make eye contact. “He’s no one. And he’s never coming back.” 

“Promise?” Fuck, he sounds pathetic.

“I promise. Now are we going to have sex or not?”

Dan sighs, shoulders slumping as he looks down at his lap. He’s gone completely soft, and he feels more exhausted than he had earlier. Herbert looks to be in much the same state, which is such a goddamn shame. If they were still in their 20’s it’d take nothing to rev them back up, Dan knows, but that’s not the case now. “Would you hate me greatly if I said I just killed the mood?”

Herbert laughs and pulls his chagrined partner to him, resting his forehead against the other man’s. “Daniel, if I were going to hate you, it would be because you turned me in. Not because you’re having trouble maintaining an erection.”

Dan snorts,“Oh, fuck you Herbert.”

“Perhaps another time.” 

This time they’re both laughing, and Dan hopes Herbert finds his laugh lines as endearing as he finds the other man’s. Somehow he doubts it, but that's ok, Herbert has never demonstrated his regard like a normal person. It’s enough to be able to share in a moment like this. 

They reshuffle themselves, lights turning out, bodies crawling under covers and settling in, a smaller, leaner one against the broader of the two. Herbert settles his head on Dan’s chest and for a second everything is quiet. Outside there are crickets, and the sounds of passing traffic. In the distance a police siren whines, but is soon lost as it travels further away from them.

“So. You uh. You like my serum?” Dan asks, after a beat, voice hushed in the quiet dark of their room. 

“It is very you Dan. A healing prerogative. You always were a better doctor.”

“Yea your bedside manner sucked.”

“My bedside manner was fine. For the pathology lab.”

Dan snorts, and squeezes his pint-sized psycho.. He kisses him on the head, and Herbert shuffles, if possible, closer to him. 

“When can we begin human trials? For the whole process.” Herbert asks, and Dan can’t help the shark smile that breaks onto his face. Pride coils and winds through him like a transplanted tentacle and he knows even before he opens his mouth he’s about to impress. 

“Oh, just you wait ‘til you see our new home.” He says, fingers dancing along Herberts bare arm.

“Dan?”

Their home, not the empty house Dan has occupied the last 13 years. Not the mausoleum, last residence of his old life. Not the tomb he’d resided in until his rebirth. No, that sepulchre could be left and finally the temple could be occupied. Finally he’ll be able to share it with the man he’d built it for. From within it they’d mock even the sun with their brightness. He’s made sure of it.

“Newly renovated,” He says, and feels Herbert perk up, “basement lab space, paid for under an alias, a cemetary on one side.” And here Dan stops, waits for his beloved to sit up, and when he’s absolutely certain Herbert is on the edge of anticipation, he finishes. “And our body farm on the other.”

Herbert gapes at him and it really does feel so good to throw the usually unshakeable Herbert West for another loop.

“How many bodies do you want, baby?” Dan smirks at him, and runs his hands up his love’s arms. “Embalmed, or not? It won’t do much for your NPE experiments but-”

“I adore you.”

“Good thing. Half my patents have your name on there too, you know. Well, your new name.” He has to stop, Herbert's face is starting to look like he doesn’t believe him, eyes goggling and mouth open like a decked trout. The expression is exceedingly kissable and so Dan does. He kisses Herbert's brow until it relaxes, his cheek, his small upturned nose, his cute mole before finally his chapped lips. “I’ve had a lot of time to plan for this, Herbert.”

“Apparently so.”

Herbert settles against his chest again, one arm over his belly and running cold fingers against Dan’s ribs, and for a moment it’s like no time has passed. If Dan closes his eyes they’ll be back in the mortuary house. Maybe this time he can do it right, maybe they both can. If it is possible, Dan knows exactly how he needs to start it. 

“Hey,” He says, and Herbert murmurs an acknowledgment, already on his way to being asleep. “I love you.” 

Herbert doesn’t answer, not right away, but when he does it’s even better than Dan had hoped it would be.

“I forgive you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In those 13 years, Dan created the regenerating reagent and patented it as an excellent Eye cream for wrinkles, thus becoming a independently wealthy cosmetics king. It may also have military uses, on top of being a sought after surgeon, and all so he could buy barbie her dream house. Alexa, play "Big Bank by YG, feat. 2 Chainz, Big Sean and Nicki Minaj"
> 
> I have plenty of other thoughts about what these two are going to get up to- a lot- but we'll see if the writing bug bites me again.


End file.
